Truckers corralled at Sturbridge stop after Conn. highways closed

The decision by Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to order trucks off of the state’s major highways yesterday afternoon turned a truck stop here into their refuge.

But the Pilot truck stop had more customers than it could handle, because its power was knocked out earlier in the day.

The lot at Pilot truck stop in Sturbridge, a short distance from the Connecticut state line, can hold 250 trucks, and yesterday it was bursting at the seams.

“I can leave any time that I want, but not yet,” David Casiano, an employee at the truck stop said, watching from the darkened store.

There was no fuel, no restrooms and no place to get a hot meal, but the truckers said they’re usually ready for such predicaments, carrying food and supplies in their sleeper rigs.

The local drivers go without the sleeper accommodations and were waiting it out in their cabs, knowing it could be a long night.

James Gambles pulled in for fuel and found himself out of luck.

“I have fuel, but I wanted a little more,” he said as his rig rested near the shrink-wrapped pumps.

Mr. Gamble thought he was going to Tennessee and blurted out an expletive when he heard that Interstate 84 was closed.

“I guess I gotta stay here,” he said, grinning.

Truckers said they were told they had to get off Connecticut’s highways because of the wind and rain that was pounding the area by late afternoon.

The directive sent them scrambling for hard-to-find spots close to the highway. Some said the weigh station in Connecticut just before the state line was packed with trucks that had been ordered off the highway by state police. The road was mostly empty in the Sturbridge area, and even cars were being denied access.

A few truckers gathered outside the shuttered Pilot truck stop convenience store and laughed as the wind pushed them around and rained battered them.

“I’m 300 pounds and that’s moving me,” said a trucker named Dale, who declined to give his last name.

“I was sliding all over the road, so I ain’t driving in this anymore,” said Dale, who drives for Schneider National Trucking. “There ain’t nothing I’m going to do out here to hurt nobody.”

Most of the drivers said they’d probably still be tucked tightly into their spots when the morning comes, but they were hoping the power would be restored so they’d at least have use of the facilities.

“That’s the bad thing, the power’s out. There’s no restrooms, no nothing,” Jorge Canaveral of Miami said. “Yeah, you hide behind the trailer if you’ve got no other choice.”